Introduction: Stabroek News has invited the People’s Progressive Party/Civic, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change to submit a weekly column on governance and related matters. Only APNU has submitted a column this week.
Guyana is too large to be effectively or efficiently managed only by a central government or from the centre. Arising from this simple truth, the constitution provides for central, regional and local government. Existing constitutional arrangements provide for eighty-two governments, namely one central, ten regional, six townships and sixty five neighborhoods.
It has not always been this way. The current country-wide system of regional and local government was introduced in the 1980 constitution and subsequently revised and strengthened with further constitutional provisions enacted in 2001 as well as new legislation pertaining to same. The two principal pieces of legislation that relate to the system of regional and local government and which provide its overarching architecture are: Act No. 12 of 1980, Local Democratic Organs Act 1980 (enacted 29th August, 1980), and Local Democratic Organs Act, Cap. 28:09 (enacted 6th October, 1980). Both these legislations arose from provisions introduced in the 1980 constitution as well as the State Paper on the re-organization of the local government system in Guyana which was laid in the National Assembly on 5th August, 1980. This was acknowledged by then Minister of Economic Development, Cde. H D Hoyte who led the debate at the second reading of the Local Democratic Organs Bill 1980 on 18th August, 1980 in the Third Parliament.
02The above Bill, which is intituled: “An Act to make provision for the institution of a country-wide system of local government through the establishment of organs of local democratic power as a vital aspect of … democracy”, became Act No. 12 of 1980. To enable and appreciate the import and intent of the new local government system and what was envisaged, it is necessary to recall selected portions of Mr. Hoyte’s presentation in the aforesaid seminal debate. Mr. Hoyte noted herein that from the principles outlined in the new constitution and from the provisions which have been made for the new local government, that the new constitution sees the local government system in an entirely different way from the way in which it was seen hitherto. According to him, the new scope, functions and duties of local government organs could only be described as “revolutionary.” He said: “It follows, therefore, that the new system outlined in the new constitution would require that the existing system be wholly dismantled and swept away. There can be no idea of tinkering with the present system or attempting to reform it; it has to be replaced entirely; it has to be removed, root and branch.” Local government would now be removed from a “peripheral institution … to the very centre of national life.” It was now assigned “a pivotal role in the political, economic and social life of our country.” The old construct which relegated local government to a “maintenance and regulatory” role would give way to it being “an agency of development.”
Further, the old relationship of dependence which saw local government bodies relying upon the central government for its sustenance and kept alive by patronage would be replaced with a relationship of equality; a symbiotic one; in the words of the State Paper, “in which each system supports and enriches the other.”
The Bill, said Mr. Hoyte “seeks to ensure that there is real devolution and decentralization of large areas of the central government activities; that there is handed over to the people in their various communities the power and responsibility for doing a wide range of things which the central government at the present time does inadequately and inefficiently, and which, because in the very nature of things, it cannot do adequately or efficiently.”
The Local Democratic Organs Bill 1980 and the Act (No. 12 of 1980) resulting therefrom, established ten regions “for the purposes of local government.” This is in accordance with article 71 of the constitution which directs the “establishment of organs of local democratic power as an integral part of the political organization of the state.” It is a fallacy, therefore, to characterize the 1980 Constitution as one which concentrates power in an executive presidency. That in practice, the latter has obtained is as a result of constitutional provisions being honoured in the breach. The creation of the ten administrative regions was not done willy-nilly but on the basis of certain clear principles. One of these is the constitutional requirement that local government areas should be “economically viable.” Further, in Mr. Hoyte’s words, “one important principle is that the new local authorities, indeed the whole system should be geared to the task of national development.” He continued: “the boundaries of the ten regions are natural boundaries following rivers or watersheds, and … each region is both a planning and development region, having an adequate resource base to enable that region to develop and to prosper as a result of planned development and efficient implementation.”
The objectives of the new local government system are stated thus: “to involve as many citizens as possible in the task of managing and developing the communities in which they live and ensuring popular participation in organizing the political, economic, social and cultural life of those communities” [sec. 3, Act 12 of 1980].
To be continued next week.
